ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 2699 http://www.s-gabriel.org/2699 ************************************ 17 May 2003 From: Aryanhwy merch Catmael Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel! You wanted to know if we could suggest an appropriate surname for a medieval Italian man who was a bookbinder. In particular, you wondered if the Italian word for book-maker, , was ever used as a surname. Here is the information we have found. is a modern Italian word meaning 'bookie' or 'book-maker' [1]; the modern Italian phrase for 'book-binder' is 'binder of books'. [2] However, we did not find any medieval Italian surnames based on either of these words. This is likely because by the time book-binding was developed and people were book-binders by trade, literal occupational bynames were generally no longer used in Italy; rather, people had fixed, inherited surnames much like modern day surnames. However, we did find one example of an editor who lived c.1485 whose name was , where appears to be a contracted form of 'of the books'. [3] Given the meaning of the byname and the fact that he's an editor, we believe that is being used literally here. It is conceivable that his family had been involved with books for a few generations and that this was an inherited surname, but it seems more likely that this is actually a literal byname. If you would like resources for given names that would be appropriate to use with the byname , we can recommend the following: "Medieval Names Archive: Italian Names" http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/italian.shtml While researching for this report, we found some information on print culture in Renaissance Italy that we thought you might find interesting. According to one source, some large booksellers offered services of a binder working on the premises, or would organize binding from someone working on their behalf. Outside these shops there would normally be a sign with an emblem specific to this shop; some of these emblems are still visible today. [3] We hope that this letter has been useful to you and that you won't hesitate to write us again if any part was unclear or if you have further questions. Research and commentary on this letter was provided by Arval Benicoeur, Talan Gwynek, Adelaide de Beaumont, and Maridonna Benvenuti. For the Academy, -Argantgui filia Catmaili, 17May03 -- References: [1] Rebora, Piero, Francis M. Guerico and Arthur L. Hayward, eds., _Cassell's Italian Dictionary: Italian-English; English-Italian_ (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1967). [2] Hoare, Alfred. _An Italian Dictionary_, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925), s.v. Legatore, p. 342 [3] Richardson, Brian, _Print Culture In Renaissance Italy: the editor and the vernacular text, 1470 - 1600_, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 36, 243